


banana pancakes

by anna_kat



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-04
Updated: 2014-10-04
Packaged: 2018-02-19 21:50:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2404142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anna_kat/pseuds/anna_kat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sharing a bed is not that big of a deal. It's just not. Even if you have feelings for a tiny biochemist, or maybe for the broody specialist, it's not a big deal. Really.</p><p>(Or, four times Grant Ward and Jemma Simmons share a bed.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	banana pancakes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SapphireBlueJiyuu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphireBlueJiyuu/gifts).



_**1.** _

 

He’s not entirely sure how the two of them were sentenced to sharing the last bed. He’s taller than any of the rest of them, Skye sleeps like a cat curled into a ball and he knows for a fact that May sleeps way less and in weirder places than everybody else.

But somehow - while he was using the bathroom and trying to decide how much of his tac gear he had to leave on to be appropriate and still be comfortable - they’d arranged themselves in the five beds without waiting for his input.

They’re in Cambodia, waiting out an insane storm in a SHIELD-provided bunker/safe house. All they have is whatever gear they left the Bus with, which isn’t much.

When he makes it back into the large room, it’s mostly dark with the exception of one flashlight shining in the far corner. He looks around, his panic starting to increase as he eyes each bed.

Melinda May is turned on her side in the bed closest to the door, on top of the blankets and with one hand underneath the pillow. (He wonders briefly what she’s holding on to.) Coulson looks like he fell asleep without planning to do so, propped against the wall behind him, legs stretched out and head tilted down toward his chest.

A little further back, Skye is fast asleep on her bed (definitely curled into a tiny little ball) with her ear buds in and her face buried in the crook of her elbow. Fitz is taking up about as much room on his mattress as physically possible, sprawled out on his stomach and snoring loudly.

Which leaves Simmons in the corner, little flashlight moving over the pages of a notebook in her lap. Fitz lets out a particularly loud snore, she looks up to wrinkle her nose in the engineer’s direction, and finally sees Grant standing by the door. “Oh, you’re back.” She says, voice just a touch louder than a whisper. She gestures for him to come closer to her, and he does so with his heart hammering in his chest.

“Did I draw the short straw?” He mumbles when he’s nearer to the bed, and her face drops enough for him to stutter out more words as quickly as possible. “Um, no, I mean, am I- uh, am I sleeping on the floor?”

Now she’s smiling widely, like the second question fixed all that was wrong with the world. He’s struck by how beautiful that smile is, how it reaches her eyes and makes him want to smile back at her. Which he doesn’t. Wouldn’t dare.

“Oh no, you don’t have to do that. I mean, you certainly can if you’d rather, I know not everyone’s comfortable sharing sleeping space. I won’t hold it against you if you don’t want to stay with me.”

He scratches at the back of his neck. He kept his shirt on, but he’s only in his boxers (he’d tried sleeping in the pants of his tac gear once and couldn’t remember a time he’d been so uncomfortable) and he’s not entirely sure what she’s wearing aside from a large t-shirt that’s definitely not hers.

“This is Fitz’s shirt.” She says quietly, shrugging her shoulders. Still smiling and apparently reading his mind. “Don’t worry, I’ve got pants on. I keep sweats in the duffel. Goodness knows all the things that can end up on the clothes of a biochemist.”

“I don’t mind sharing if you don’t mind.” He offers slowly. Because he most certainly doesn’t mind. It’s not a big deal. Why does it feel like a big deal?

She beams, scooting closer to the wall. “Of course I don’t. I’m a remarkably good sharer for an only child.” The notebook in her lap gets shut and dropped to the floor, and she settles her back onto the bed before her eyes appraise him for a moment. She flips onto her side, back to the wall. “Come on then. We should get some rest. Busy day.”

He climbs onto the bed, slipping under the blankets. He stays on his side too, like they’re both afraid to actually touch each other. She clicks off the flashlight and the room goes pitch black.

Her breathing is barely audible over Fitz’s snoring, but he can tell when it evens out and she falls asleep.

He does not fall asleep.

 

**_2._ **

****

They finally get to check into a hotel after four nights of sleeping on the floor of the forest. The rest of the team will pick them up in the morning, and Simmons actually squeals when she sees a real bed. If he had less dignity, he’d probably do the same.

She flings herself onto the bed closest to the window, her face pressed into the comforter. He’s doing a quick check of the room when she speaks up, voice muffled by the fabric. “Mind if I take this one?”

He opens the closet and looks inside to hide his smile. “Would it matter?”

Her smile is audible. “I suppose you could steal it while I take a very long shower. I know you’re good with subterfuge.” She slowly drags herself into a standing position, moving to open the suitcase she’d packed four days ago and left at the local SHIELD office. She digs out a little bag and a change of clothes. “I promise I won’t be in there long.”

He just nods, picking through his own suitcase and looking at the menu on the room service sheet.

Of course, she’s in the shower for what feels like ages. He orders a bunch of random food and has it delivered to the room, completely devouring as much as he can eat before he feels like he could bust. When he gets to that point, he pounds his fist against the bathroom door. “Simmons, hurry up! I need to shower and you need to eat something!”

All he gets in a response is her humming louder and the shower turning off. She takes another five years to actually get out of the bathroom, emerging in a cloud of steam in sweatpants and a tank top, wet hair piled on top of her head.

Another loud squeal follows him into the bathroom as she catches sight of the food on the table. He shuts the door behind him and tries to decide if he actually saw the word ‘Hogwarts’ stretching up the leg of her sweats.

When he gets out of the shower, she’s piled up the dirty dishes and is fast asleep in the center of the bed she’d claimed earlier. She’s cocooned herself in the blanket to the point where all he can see of her is from the nose up.

Shaking his head and turning off the light, he collapses into the other bed and falls asleep within minutes.

He wakes up when he hears movement in the room, bolting up into a sitting position and immediately trying to put eyes on Simmons. Her bed is empty and he’s about to tear everything apart to look for her when he realizes she’s the one moving around.

“Simmons?” He says quietly, trying not to startle her. “What are you doing?”

“I’m sorry.” She whispers back. “I was just… nothing, really. I wasn’t doing anything.”

His eyes adjust a little better to the dark, and he can see her standing near the end of her bed, arms wrapped around herself and looking generally like she’s trying to fold in on herself. He recognizes the posture immediately. “Nightmare?” She responds with an agonized squeak, and he rubs a hand over his face. “Do you want to come and sit for a minute?”

“Oh, you should sleep. I’m sorry I woke you. I can turn on the telly or find a book or something.”

He shakes his head at her outline, reaching across the bed to find the remote. He clicks the television on and starts to go through the channels. “Come on, you’re going to get cold.”

From the time she slides her legs under the covers to the time she falls asleep beside him to a documentary about jellyfish, he counts a solid seven minutes.

 

**_3._ **

 

Coulson says he’ll stay with Ward if she wants to sleep, but Jemma waves him off. She’ll have to change the dressing on the wound on Grant’s chest in a few hours anyway, and concussion watch gives her time to work on some reports while she keeps an eye on him. 

She sits on the edge of the bed in his bunk, flipping through papers and waiting for her watch to beep. Finishing up on one report and signing her name to the bottom, she sets it aside.

A tiny but incessant beeping fills the bunk. “Ward.” She tries softly, placing a gentle hand along his shoulder. When she doesn’t get a response, she lets her thumb drift along the back of his neck. “Grant, you have to wake up.”

He grumbles, a sound low in his chest that most definitely does not send a shiver down her spine.

“Come on, now. Just a quick check and then you can go back to sleep.” She waits for him to turn toward her and conducts her mini-check up as fast as she can manage while still doing it properly. “Alright, you can go back to sleep. Do you want any water or food first?”

He shakes his head, pats her knee, and rolls back toward the wall. She attributes the random affection to the pain-killers.

She goes back to her work, scooting a little closer to the edge of the bed when she can feel the heat of his bare back against her hip. She’s hardly on the mattress at this point, but she can live with that.

After awhile, she wakes him again to change the gauze on his chest, waiting until he stretches out on his back. Peeling it away, she starts to clean around the wound.

“Maybe next mission, we could do without me cracking my head against a wall.” He murmurs quietly, eyes closed.

She reaches into the kit by her knee to find fresh gauze, humming her agreement. “I’d like it if you didn’t get shot, too.”

His eyes are still closed. “Mm. Me too.”

“You’re done.” She packs away the supplies and watches him turn back over without another word.

When her watch beeps the next time, she jerks awake without remembering falling asleep. She’s slouched against the wall and precariously close to the edge of the bed.

“Grant.” She mumbles sleepily, tracing her finger over the span of his shoulders and halfway down his spine before she realizes what she’s doing and retracts her hand like it’s been burned.

He rolls over and cracks one eye open, but doesn’t mention her touch. “Were you sleeping too?”

She checks over the gauze to avoid meeting his eyes. “Just for a moment.”

When she deems him fit to go back to sleep, he puts his hand on her elbow. “You can lie down. So you don’t hurt your neck.” He rolls over and is asleep again before she responds.

The fourth time her watch beeps, she’s so comfortable she almost ignores it. Eventually her self-awareness kicks in and her eyes snap open.

Oh. Okay.

So maybe she’s in Grant Ward’s bed and maybe he’s not wearing a shirt and _maybe_ his arms are wrapped low around her waist and her leg is thrown over his hip and his head is resting against her chest and **_maybe_** she really likes it.

But maybe not.

(She really likes it.)

“Your watch is still beeping.” He grumbles against her sweater. She wonders if he hasn’t realized their current position or if he doesn’t care.

“Sorry.” She stops the beeping and dares to speak again. “So, you’re not in a coma, that’s good. We can call that a check-up."

He’s asleep again anyway, and she may or may not settle against him and go back to sleep too.

 

**_4._ **

****

She likes when they sleep in his bed for the same reasons he likes when they sleep in her bed. It smells like him, feels like him, makes her feel so incredibly safe.

And so, stretched out on her belly in his bunk and reading a book, she apparently feels so safe that her ears don’t even pick up the sound of the door sliding open and then shut again.

Suddenly he’s collapsing onto her, his chest pressing into her back, not with his entire weight, but pretty damn close.

“Oof!” She squeaks into the pages of her book. “You’re crushing me!”

His face is pressed to the top of her spine. “Mm. It’s my bed.”

Jemma rolls her eyes. “Alright then, I suppose I’ll just go back to my bed.”

He instantly loops his arms around her hips, pressing himself into her back a little more. “No, you should definitely stay here.”

She giggles in response, folding her arms beneath her forehead. “I don’t know, you might have to convince me.” She doesn’t regret her words one bit when he presses his lips to the back of her neck.

He works slowly down the line of her spine, and she wishes the fabric of her pajama shirt wasn’t in the way. He kisses closer to her hips, where he knows the little dimples in her lower back sit. “How am I doing?”

She hums, hoping he can’t see that her eyes have slipped shut and a rosy heat has crept into her cheeks. “I suppose you’ve convinced me.”

“You suppose?” He asks, and she can practically hear his eyebrows going up. The second time it’s a statement accompanied by a roll of his very lovely eyes. “You suppose. How about this?” He reaches up to tickle her ribs and she shrieks with laughter, trying to curl away from his grasp.

By the time they crack heads at least twice and she nearly kicks him in the groin, Skye starts thumping her hand against the wall from the other side. “Hey! You know the rules! If you’re gonna get funky in there, it’s supposed to be so quiet we can’t even tell! I don’t wanna know!”

Grant finally quits with the tickling, so she settles herself down and knocks gently on the wall too. “Sorry, Skye!” There’s a grumble in response, so she turns back to Grant. “You’re going to get us into trouble and Coulson will ground us to separate bunks again.”

He scoots higher up on the bed, head on the pillow beside hers and draping himself over her back instead of full-on crushing. “In my defense… you were gone for almost two weeks. And I couldn’t help myself.”

She giggles again, gripping his hand and tugging his arm around her waist again. “You always say that.” His hand strokes her hip and up her arm, and she presses a kiss to his palm. “Tell me a story.”

There’s a pause from behind her. “A story?”

She grins, sensing his apprehension. “Mmhm. A bedtime story. So I can go to sleep.”

“Uh. Okay.” There’s another lengthy pause, and she wonders if he’s fallen asleep himself. “There was a man. Who worked alone for his whole life. And then he met a woman who changed everything for him. And he never wanted to go back.”

It’s a short story, if one even wanted to call it that. But she knows she won’t get much more out of him, and she doesn’t mind. It’s the best bedtime story she’s ever heard.


End file.
